


you are a kaleidoscope

by grinsekaetzchen



Series: a universe created by ourselves [4]
Category: SKAM (Norway)
Genre: Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Magical Realism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 09:19:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14787768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grinsekaetzchen/pseuds/grinsekaetzchen
Summary: The first time Even sees Isak across the schoolyard, his own magic grips him so tight, he has to sit down to get it under control again.Still, he doesn’t stop looking at Isak.





	you are a kaleidoscope

**Author's Note:**

  * For [strangetowns](https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangetowns/gifts).



> THE HAPPIEST OF BIRTHDAYS TO [SARAH](http://canonicallyanxious.tumblr.com/)!!!! I’m so glad that I met you last year (how has it only been a year??) and I hope that me trying to find the voices of these idiot boys again has worked <33 ily and it’s been very hard not telling you about this fic, so I’m very happy I can share it with you now! I hope you have the best day <3333 
> 
> Also thank you to [Lyds ](http://boxesfullofthoughts.tumblr.com/)and [Lauren](http://call-this-a-mask.tumblr.com/), who looked this over for me and listened to me whine about how hard writing is, ily guys <33 
> 
> The title is from “Get Out” by Chvrches, which doesn’t fit with the fic at all but I liked that line.

On pink grass, Even learns that Isak carries his magic in the tips of his fingers. It’s only the second time that they’re lying beneath the stars, talking in hushed whispers. The only thing that breaks their silence is the laughter that escapes them sometimes; too loud to fit properly.

Then, Isak’s fingers brush against Even’s arm, shocking him with the flash of energy that rushes through him suddenly. Isak pulls his hand away in an instant, leaving only the phantom touch of something hot.

“Sorry,” he whispers, even quieter than before.

“Your magic is so –“ Even searches for a word in Isak’s eyes.

Isak looks away. Even wants to reach out and touch him again, but he’s not sure yet if Isak has got his magic back under control, if it’s back where it should be, and he doesn’t want to startle him.

“It’s weird,” Isak says finally.

“No.” That’s definitely not the word Even was searching for. Everything but that.

Isak looks at him again, his eyes slightly narrowed, waiting for Even to say something else. For once in his life, Even doesn’t know what to say. Instead he just smiles at Isak, wide and honest.

After a moment, Isak smiles back. A little more cautious maybe.

 

The first time Even sees Isak across the schoolyard, his own magic grips him so tight, he has to sit down to get it under control again.

Still, he doesn’t stop looking at Isak.

 

There are days when Even hates his magic, when it becomes heavy inside of him, growing cold and painting his insides dark grey. Those days, strangers instinctively steer clear of him, pulling their own magic close to themselves while Even’s dries up.

The people he accidentally touches flinch back; scared of the strange feeling that something’s missing. Even walks away from them until he can’t stand up any longer and has to stay in bed. He remembers how Sonja would come around, sit in a chair next to him, her hands folded on top of her knees and a sad look on her face. Even used to turn his back to her.

Isak knows him for a few weeks when the magic starts leaving again. It’s a gradual process: first, it hides deeper and deeper in his bones, somewhere he can’t reach, somewhere he can’t use it to see himself from different perspectives anymore, but then it turns to stone and it’s as if he never had it in the first place. It makes him breathe faster, makes his heart double its speed, trying frantically to find the magic. Each time, he thinks he will never recover it.

Isak visits Even and normally, Even would be able to fling the magic into the room, cast a wide net and see the way he looks from Isak’s perspective for a short moment. Now, he can only watch as Isak stares at him, calculating. He takes a step closer to him. Even instinctively presses his back to the wall.

“Do you want me to leave?” Isak asks carefully.

Even shakes his head.

“Then, you’ll have to put up with me coming into your bed.” Isak sits down on the bed.

Even closes his eyes before he forces his tired tongue to shape the words he should say. “My magic-“ he begins.

“Yes. I can feel it.”

Isak isn’t even touching him. He can’t be able to feel to it. This time, Even’s tongue doesn’t need any help. “But it’s gone.”

Isak frowns at him. “It’s not gone. I can feel it”

Even clenches his hands into fists. Isak takes them in his, doesn’t flinch back. Even blinks at him. “But _I_ can’t feel it.”

“It’s here.” Isak sounds so sure as he squeezes Even’s hands, no sign of his own magic, but maybe Even is too tired, too confused, to find it. He decides he’ll believe Isak for now.

He falls asleep next to him.

 

Sonja once tells him that touching him while he’s missing his magic is like being sucked into a void.

Even thinks that’s fitting. It’s what it feels like for him too, after all.

 

Even gets to know Isak’s friends and learns where they keep their magic: Jonas’ is sitting at the nape of his neck, where he puts his hand whenever he’s unsure; Magnus holds his in the palms of his hands, open and easy; Mahdi’s magic lights up his whole face, coming out whenever he grins; Eva carries hers behind her ear; Noora’s scalp is full of magic, glowing when she runs her fingers through her hair.

They all lose bits and pieces of their magic, carelessly scattering it wherever they go. Even doesn’t know what it is they can do with theirs, doesn’t ask, but he can see glittering flakes dissolve in the air when they all meet.

And then there’s Isak, who carries his magic right there in his finger tips and never leaves a trace. Who is so careful with who he touches, where he puts his fingers, that Even wants to take his hands and shake them. Just to see if Isak would still keep all that magic balled up inside of him.

Even’s own magic embraces his heart and clenches at the thought.

 

Even’s magic always comes back slowly. It climbs out of the nooks in his bones and crawls up towards his heart. It takes days, but Isak doesn’t seem to mind, keeps holding Even’s hands nonetheless. There’s no magic bleeding over from Isak anymore, not since that time underneath the stars, but Even doesn’t ask why.

Once Even’s magic is painting his insides in bright colours again, he uses it to see himself from Isak’s perspective. He stretches it out of his body and for a split second he is in Isak’s shoes looking at himself standing across from Isak. His smile seems to light up the room. Then, he is pulled back into his own body.

Isak is staring at him. “The next time you wanna do that, maybe just ask?” he says.

“You felt that?”

“Don’t tell me you usually get away with that,” Isak snorts. “Kidnapping other people’s eyes is not exactly subtle.”

“What – that’s not what it – Isak, no one has ever noticed me doing that.”

Isak shrugs. “They were probably just too polite to mention it.” He pulls his shoulders up and hunches in on himself a little.

Even steps forward, putting his hands on his shoulders and smiles at him. “Somehow I really doubt that.”

 

“Have you ever noticed Isak’s magic?” Even asks Jonas at some point.

Jonas rolls his eyes. “Dude, if you wanna know about Isak’s magic maybe ask him, you know.”

Even nods. It’s not if he doesn’t have a point.

 

Isak doesn’t use magic at school. Where others flaunt their skills, he bends for every book he drops and picks it up with his hands, and when his locker doesn’t open he makes Even use basic magic to open it for him. Once, Even wants to ask why but Isak just smiles at him. “You’re like my personal butler,” he says and that makes Even forget what he was going to ask because “Really, Isak, I’m offended.”

The first time Isak uses magic around Even, Even is pretty sure it’s an accident. Even put out candles because – well, there was no reason not to – and one of them dies out, before spontaneously lighting up again. Isak is barely looking at it, focused on the film in front of them, but Even notices.

The next time, a window closes softly when Even complains about being cold. Then, Even’s charger turns up next to him when he’s searching for it. Isak never once concentrates on what he’s doing, always preoccupied with something else. Even starts wondering just how powerful Isak is.

 

“Do you not like your magic?” Even asks after they’ve known each other for months.

Isak raises his eyebrows. “I mean, I don’t love it.”

“Why not?”

“It’s exhausting,” Isak says, before kissing Even. Even can take a hint.

 

It’s Eskild, who finally lets more slip than he probably should. “Even,” he says, when Even walks into the flat that Isak will soon be moving out of to move in with him, “make your boyfriend stop the fucking hurricane in his room.”

“Trust me, my room at home looks like a mess, too,” Even grins.

Eskild rolls his eyes. “Cute, but I’m talking about an actual hurricane. Good luck. I’m going out and only returning once he’s got his magic under control again.”

Even doesn’t know what to think when he knocks at Isak’s door. He doesn’t hear anything, so he opens the door carefully. It swings open to reveal Isak standing in the middle of a room that is full of boxes, a taken apart bed and a desk.

There is also a storm cloud above Isak.

Isak has his hands on his hips, looking up at it and sighing loudly.

“Is this a bad time?” Even asks.

Isak jumps, turning around. “Oh, fuck.”

“Is that – you?” Even points at the storm cloud, closing the door behind him. The cloud growls loudly and something that looks like lightning strikes through its middle.

“Obviously not, that’s a cloud,” Isak snaps. Even holds his hands up and Isak groans. “Sorry, sorry, I’m just stressed and this hasn’t happened in a long time and – it’s not my fault that you want to replay the memories of this fucking room now,” he says, addressing the last part to the storm cloud.

“You talk to your magic?”

“Only when it’s being an asshole,” Isak mutters. Then, he waves his hands, balling them into fists, and presses his lips into a line. The power coming from him makes Even take a step back as the cloud slowly grows smaller, growling and flashing, before it disappears. As if it was never there.

“Okay,” Even says.

Isak plops down on the floor, looking up at him slightly afraid. “Did I scare you?”

“No.” It’s not a lie and Isak seems to sense that.

“Good. It’s not going to happen again. Okay, it might, but usually it doesn’t, I have it under control.”

“Just exactly how powerful is your magic?” Even comes closer, sitting down across from Isak.

Isak shrugs. “I’m not sure. I haven’t tried a lot of things.”

“Why not?”

Isak snorts. “Because it’s bad enough when I don’t try.”

Even reaches out a hand to lay it on Isak’s knee. Isak lets him. “You said you were stressed? Is it because of the moving?”

“Yes, but it’s a good kind of stress. It’s just that my magic doesn’t get that sometimes and I was thinking of, like, the not so good things that I thought about in this room and the magic took that as an invitation to – well, you saw what it did.” Isak sighs again. He sounds tired.

“It’s amazing. You’re amazing.”

At that, Isak looks up quickly. “What?”

“It’s unbelievable what you can do.” Even doesn’t need to see himself from Isak’s perspective; he knows that he is radiating astonishment.

Isak’s mouth drops open, before a grin overtakes his face. Even can’t help but kiss him. Isak’s magic tingles on his lips.

  

“You know, there was another reason why I stayed in the basement when I first came to live with Eskild,” Isak says days later when they’re lying on their brand-new bed in their brand-new flat. Even makes a quiet noise to keep Isak talking and strokes the palm of his hand. It’s warm underneath his fingertips.

“I mean, yes, part of it was that they didn’t have any space for me yet. But the other thing was” – Isak stops for a second, Even waits – “the other thing was that I would have destroyed everything. I destroyed half the basement anyway.”

Even fights to keep any emotion out of his voice when he says, “With your magic?”

“Yeah,” Isak sighs. Even hates how defeated he sounds. He doesn’t ask Isak to elaborate. He can put the pieces together himself, can imagine how lost and hurt and alone Isak must have felt, his magic tearing out of him and ricocheting off the walls in the basement. Instead, Even takes a bit of his own magic and opens the window. Isak raises his eyebrows.

“I’m cold,” Even says.

Isak looks at him as if he’s stupid. The memories from before that left his face closed off make room for confusion. “Right,” Isak says. “How about you don’t open the window then.”

“Close it?” Even asks, ignoring what Isak said.

Isak grumbles and pulls his elbow underneath him as if to get up. Even tugs him back down to the bed. “But also don’t leave,” he tells him. His heart is hammering in his chest and he doesn’t know if Isak will understand and if he does whether he’ll like what – Isak rolls his eyes, but there’s a slight smile on his lips. He kisses Even and Even can hear the window click shut.

“See,” he says, watching Isak’s eyes carefully when Isak moves back again, “now you can use your magic to do this.”

“Close windows for you?” Isak seems sceptical.

“To be kind.”

The next kiss Even gets feels like Isak is trying to say things with it he can’t say out loud. Even smiles into it.

 

On pink grass, Even interlocks his fingers with Isak’s, his own magic starting to recede again, a desert on the horizon, when he asks, “You said my magic isn’t gone when I can’t feel it. Where does it go?”

“Right here,” Isak says, squeezing Even’s left arm. A distant flame flickers underneath Even’s skin there.

“Can’t you give me some of your magic?” Even jokes, half-serious.

“No, but I can do this.” Isak pulls him into his arms and slowly, he can feel Isak’s fingertips burn through his jacket. The warmth spreads all over Even’s body, embracing it.

“Show-off,” Even mumbles against Isak’s neck.

“Shut up,” Isak whispers back.

Even uses the last of his magic that he can access to blink himself high up above them. He pretends he can see fire shielding them from everything else.

He comes back to his body to notice the slight stubble on Isak’s chin where he has started growing the tiniest of beards and finds that he is fine with seeing just that for a while. Isak’s magic hugs him tighter.


End file.
